Editing Etruscan language (section)

==Writing system==
===Alphabet===
{{Main|Etruscan alphabet}}
[[File:Dedication Dioskouroi Met L.2008.1.1.jpg|thumb|250px|Etruscan dedication to the "sons of Zeus" ([[Dioscuri]]) made by  Venel Apelinas (or Atelinas), and signed by the potter Euxitheos and the painter Oltos, on the bottom of an [[Attic red-figure]] [[kylix]] (c. 515–510 BC)]]
The [[Latin script]] owes its existence to the Etruscan alphabet, which was adapted for Latin in the form of the [[Old Italic script]]. The Etruscan alphabet<ref>The alphabet can also be found with alternative forms of the letters at [http://www.omniglot.com/writing/etruscan.htm Omniglot].</ref> employs a [[Euboea]]n variant{{sfn|Bonfante|1990|loc=chapter 2}} of the [[Greek alphabet]] using the letter [[digamma]] and was in all probability transmitted through [[Ischia|Pithecusae]] and [[Cumae]], two Euboean settlements in southern Italy. This system is ultimately derived from [[history of the alphabet|West Semitic scripts]].

The Etruscans recognized a 26-letter alphabet, which makes an early appearance incised for decoration on a small [[bucchero]] terracotta lidded vase in the shape of a cockerel at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, ca. 650–600 BC.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizations/etruscan/a/bucchero|title=Bucchero|website=Khan Academy|access-date=15 March 2018}}</ref> The full complement of 26 has been termed the model alphabet.{{sfn|Bonfante|Bonfante|2002|p=55}} The Etruscans did not use four letters of it, mainly because Etruscan did not have the voiced stops ''b'', ''d'' and ''g''; the ''o'' was also not used. They innovated one letter for ''f'' ({{linktext|𐌚}}).{{sfn|Bonfante|1990|loc=chapter 2}}

===Text===
Writing was from right to left except in archaic inscriptions, which occasionally used [[boustrophedon]]. An example found at [[Cerveteri]] used left to right. In the earliest inscriptions, the words are continuous. From the 6th century BC, they are separated by a dot or a colon, which might also be used to separate syllables. Writing was phonetic; the letters represented the sounds and not conventional spellings. On the other hand, many inscriptions are highly abbreviated and often casually formed, so the identification of individual letters is sometimes difficult. Spelling might vary from city to city, probably reflecting differences of pronunciation.{{sfn|Bonfante|Bonfante|2002|p=56}}

===Complex consonant clusters===
Speech featured a heavy stress on the first syllable of a word, causing [[Syncope (phonetics)|syncopation]] by weakening of the remaining vowels, which then were not represented in writing: ''Alcsntre'' for ''Alexandros'', ''Rasna'' for ''Rasena''.{{sfn|Bonfante|1990|loc=chapter 2}} This speech habit is one explanation of the Etruscan "impossible" consonant clusters. Some of the consonants, especially [[Sonorant|resonants]], however, may have been syllabic, accounting for some of the clusters (see below under [[#Consonants|Consonants]]). In other cases, the scribe sometimes inserted a vowel: Greek ''Hēraklēs'' became ''Hercle'' by syncopation and then was expanded to ''Herecele''. Pallottino regarded this variation in vowels as "instability in the quality of vowels" and accounted for the second phase (e.g. ''Herecele'') as "[[vowel harmony]], i.e., of the assimilation of vowels in neighboring syllables".{{sfn|Pallottino|1955a|p=261}}

===Phases===
The writing system had two historical phases: the archaic from the seventh to fifth centuries BC, which used the early Greek alphabet, and the later from the fourth to first centuries BC, which modified some of the letters. In the later period, syncopation increased.

The alphabet went on in modified form after the language disappeared. In addition to being the source of the Roman and early [[Oscan]] and [[Umbrian]] alphabets, it has been suggested that it passed northward into [[Veneto]] and from there through [[Raetia]] into the [[Germanic languages|Germanic]] lands, where it became the [[Elder Futhark]] alphabet, the oldest form of the [[runes]].{{sfn|Bonfante|Bonfante|2002|pp=117 ff.}}